1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus, data processing method, and computer program thereof. In particular, the present invention is preferable in processing data according to inputted voice.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, operation instructions can be inputted by voice. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-181292, various operating modes are pre-registered and then called up by simple voice input. The prior art uses a technology of converting inputted voice into text. In other words, the apparatus converts voice into text which can be recognized as operation instructions in the same way as recognizing operation instructions manually entered by a user via an operating panel.
There are conventional methods of inputting a password, such as inputting the identification number using a numeric keypad or a keyboard, or selecting and inputting an element of a password from the displayed content. In addition, there is known an inputting method in which inputted voice is analyzed to extract a voice pattern, and determination is made on whether the voice pattern matches a pre-registered voice pattern to identify the user. Furthermore, there is a method in which a user needs to speak a certain word so that the matching of the voice pattern data can be more easily detected.
A method using the above methods is considered in which a password is inputted by voice using a voice-to-text conversion system. In this method, a password such as “1234” which is conventionally inputted by the user using a numeric key pad is inputted by giving voice as “one, two, three, four”.
When an instruction is inputted into a device, it is easier to use voice as compared to manual input that uses an operating unit such as a numeric key pad or a keyboard.
However, in the case where a password is inputted by voice using a voice-to-text conversion system as described above, the password can be heard by other people standing nearby. Thus, unless the device has a voice pattern authentication system, this is a problem for an apparatus in which a password is inputted by voice.